Scattering of Intermediate-Energy Neutrons from Nuclei and the Ramsauer Hypothesis

A quantity is identified that can be experimentally determined and used to directly test the validity of the Ramsauer hypothesis. This quantity, which is called the relative differential cross section, is defined as the ratio of the differential to the total shape-elastic cross section. The Ramsauer model prediction of this quantity is compared with that obtained from the spherical optical model code SCAT2. The results of this comparison and the analysis are presented for neutron interaction with ²⁰⁸Pb, for incident neutron energies less than 60 MeV.